The job of a blog is to inform. Many companies are blogging, but why does your business need a blog? Websites need them to drive traffic to their pages. A good blog predicts what the potential visitor is looking for and provides that content. If your website sells a product (even your expertise), your blog should educate people on what you provide. Potential clients/visitors need to be able to find this information. That is where SEO comes in.

When a potential customer is in need of services, they type in searches such as “how to” or “ways to”. Your blog should answer that question and inform them about your services, and in many cases, lead them to other pages within your website. You want to be a thought leader in your industry, provide helpful content to your clients and gain their trust. A blog adds another page to your site which increases your internet footprint, making your company more visible.

Your website never sleeps and each page acts like a lottery ticket—the more pages you have, the better your odds. A blog is a long-term investment to engage in a conversation with the visitor. Stay informed on which articles perform best and on which social networks your visitors are using. Updated material performs best in search engines. Posting blogs two to three times a week is a good practice to train search engines to prioritize your website.

A good blog does three things:

Engages

Educates

Entertains

Blogs are an exchange of information. You want to educate your visitor on the subject so they can make choices. Your blog should be helpful, but you also want to entertain. Blogging is storytelling—it should be compelling. You need to engage them in a conversation—reach them at their level with content they enjoy. Give them new information: gather material for them and provide links to the pages.

Titles are Key

Your title and keywords land in the search engine’s results. Google will find the first 60 characters of your title and will prioritize updated material. Your title should zero in what a potential visitor might type into a search engine, such as “how to write a blog.” The best performing titles, according to HubSpot are “how to” and “(5) ways to”.

Subtitles help the reader ascertain if the article is relevant to their search. Bullets or numbered lists are great ways to help a visitor determine if they will get what they are looking for in your blog. Also, bolded terms at the end of paragraphs that highlight the most important points help a reader make sense of your article.

The Body: Best Practices

The body of the blog should use white space to break information up into bite-sized pieces. Keep paragraphs between two and five sentences long. The recommended length of a blog is 600 words. Use keywords and variations of them in the body with internal links to keep the visitor navigating your site. Remember to keep the blog entertaining while educating.

Call to Action: Let’s Click on It

Your blog may also include a call to action, even if it is just to follow your blog. This is where the exchange of information takes place. You educate the visitor, then they fill out a form to give their contact information. They get the knowledge they want, you get a lead. The purpose of the blog is to give a googler what they are looking for—your expertise.